May 11th.—­I am glad to have had two days in Egypt.  It gave one an idea at least of that country; in some degree a painful one.  I suppose that France and England, by their mutual jealousies, will be the means of perpetuating the abominations of the system under which that magnificent country is ruled.  They say that the Pacha’s revenue is about 4,000,000_l_., and his expenses about 2,000,000_l_.; so that he has about 2,000,000_l_. of pocket-money.  Yet I suppose that the Fellahs, owing to their own industry, and the incomparable fertility of the country, are not badly off as compared with the peasantry elsewhere.  We passed, at one of our stopping-places between Cairo and Suez, part of a Turkish regiment on their way to Jeddah.  These men were dressed in a somewhat European costume, some of them with the Queen’s medal on their breasts.  There was a hareem, in a sort of omnibus, with them, containing the establishment of one of the officers.  One of the ladies dropped her veil for a moment, and I saw rather a pretty face; almost the only Mahommedan female face I have seen since I have reached this continent.  They are much more rigorous, it appears, with the ladies in Egypt than at Constantinople.  There they wear a veil which is quite transparent and go about shopping:  but in Egypt they seem to go very little out, and their veil completely hides everything but the eyes.  In the palace which I visited near Cairo (and which the Pacha offered, if we had chosen to take it), I looked through some of the grated windows allowed in the hareems, and I suppose that it must require a good deal of practice to see comfortably out of them.  It appears that the persons who ascend to the top of the minarets to call to prayer at the appointed hours are blind men, and that the blind are selected for this office, lest they should be able to look down into the hareems.  That is certainly carrying caution very far.

[Sidenote:  Aden.]

Steamship ‘Bentinck,’ off Socotra.—­May 19th.—­I left my last letter at Aden.  We landed there at about four P.M., under a salute from an Indian man-of-war sloop and the fort, to which latter place I was conveyed in a carriage which the Governor sent for me.  It was most fearfully hot.  The hills are rugged and grand, but wholly barren; not a sign of vegetation, and the vertical rays of a tropical sun beating upon them.  The whole place is comprised in a drive around the hills of some three or four miles, beyond which the inhabitants cannot stray without the risk of being seized by the Arabs.  I cannot conceive a more dreary spot to dwell in, though the Governor assured me that the troops are healthy.  He received me very civilly, and insisted that I should remain with him until the steamer sailed, which involved leaving his abode (the cantonment) at about half-past three in the morning.  He took me to see some most extraordinary tanks which he has recently discovered, and which must have been constructed with